The main components of the drilling waste are cuttings, excess drilling fluids, hydrocarbons and water and are mostly categorized as hazardous waste. The disposal of these wastes are, in most locations around the world, highly regulated. The solids in the drill cuttings are usually separated and the cleaned off drill mud residue, as well as the produced water are usually cleaned at considerable costs.(drilling waste treatment)
The first step in managing drilling wastes is to separate the solid cuttings from the liquid drilling mud. Once solid and liquid drilling wastes have been separated, companies can use a variety of technologies and practices to manage the wastes. For some applications, drilling wastes are solidified or stabilized prior to their ultimate management practice. The management technologies and practices can be grouped into three major categories: waste minimization, recycle/reuse, and disposal.
The Following information is more about the drilling waste treatment equipment：
–Vertical Cuttings Dryer( Vertical Centrifuge) can perform solid/liquid separation through centrifugal separation. The vertical cuttings dryer can effectively recover the liquid phase in drilling cuttings, making the solid phase become very dry. It is suitable for water-base mud, oil-base mud and synthetic base mud. By recovering the mud in drilling cuttings, the vertical cuttings dryer can reduce the drilling cost and cut down environmental pollution. With handling capacity of 40-60 T/h, the oil on cuttings (OOC) of drilling cuttings can be reduced to lower than 5% (w/w) after treatment, meeting the international emissions standards and environmental protection requirements. The vertical centrifuge can also be applicable for drilling waste management in onshore and offshore drilling.
-DC Series Decanter Centrifuge is used in separating suspension of solids phase with particle ≥2μm in diameter for drilling mud and fluids handling.
-Screw Pump is an ideal pump used to feed drilling fluids to decanter centrifuge since drilling fluids is pushed to proceed along axial direction evenly. Therefore, the inner flow speed is kept low, volume unchanged and pressure stable so that vortex and agitation are prevented. Screw Pump is useful for wet mud drilling mud waste management and cuttings transportation.
–Screw conveyor (Auger) can be used in drilling waste management projects, providing an effective and low-cost drilling cuttings transport system for offshore and onshore drilling rigs. Adopting a multi-sectional composite structure with each section of 12 feet (3.66m), the screw conveyor can be flexibly assembled on different drilling sites, with characteristics of simple operation, stable structure, strong adaptability and high safety, significantly improving the operating efficiency of equipment and reducing the cost and resources. The flights of screw conveyer adopt wear-resistant material to ensure its service life.
–Hi-G Dryer is used to recover the mud from drilling cuttings,so as to reduce the liquid/oil content in drilling cuttings to as low as about 10%(w/w) and recover part of the drilling mud,so that the drilling cost can be reduced and the drilling waste volume can be cut down,for the purpose of reducing environmental pollution.The Hi-G dryer suitable for both of WBM and OBM.
